Dante Dire, Kyrie thought. And—through the panther's mind, confused, blurred—went the thought that he'd escaped the Great Sky Dragon. Somehow. She would hate to imagine how.
And then she was plunging after him, madly. She felt him bite her, attack her, too ravening to care who she was, too maddened with rage to care whether he could just mind-control her instead.
From the shadows a dragon emerged. No. Two dragons. One of them red and with a foreshortened arm. And a very wet lion. They all fell on Dire, and Kyrie couldn't honestly say who was attacking what, except that Dire seemed to be everywhere at once, his teeth biting and his claws scraping, but never enough to get hold of them.
And then he seemed to regain control. Suddenly, the horrible smell she remembered from her kitchen when he'd attacked her there, surrounded them. And into their minds poured Dire's voice, If you are done now, I can kill you.
But at the same moment, two other voices sounded. "I don't think so," said a tremulous voice and, looking over, Kyrie was surprised to see Old Joe standing, for once, very straight. Next to him was an old Japanese gentleman, looking faintly amused.
You! Dire said. You. You're weak. You can never face me.
"We're not weak," the Japanese gentleman said. His accent was, clearly, the real thing, but not that incomprehensible. "We are free. We would have nothing to do with your council and your rules. We told you before it was wrong to separate yourself from humanity."
"We told you it would come to no good," Old Joe said, his voice clearer and more firm than it had ever been, at least that Kyrie had heard it.
"No good, uh?" Dire had shifted. He was human, looking at them with scornfully curled lip. "I am the executioner. Even the Daddy Dragon couldn't face me. He cares too much for his whelp to use his form too long. He was afraid I would hurt the body he was borrowing." He grinned. "And I won. Because I don't care for anything but myself. Come," he said, and shifted, in a single, fluid movement. Come now, we'll see who is stronger.
It all happened too fast. There were suddenly an alligator and a giant spider crab. And they shifted, and the crab was stabbing at the dire wolf, while the alligator seemed to be everywhere at once, biting and slicing. The dire wolf's teeth closed on hard carapace and armored back. The alligator's teeth clack-clacked in what sounded like laughter.
There was a howl, a growl of pent-up fury, and suddenly the dire wolf was not there.